Birkbeck Institute of the Humanities, in association with Birkbeck Institute of the Moving Image and the CATH Research Centre, De Montfort University.

2014 marks the fortieth anniversary of the BBC miniseries, Shoulder to Shoulder, which told the story of the early women’s suffrage movement in Britain (1890s-1919). Its importance as a landmark BBC drama documenting women’s history and experience, the scale of which hasn’t been repeated, is unquestioned. This event focuses on women’s television history and the history of feminism on television, as it celebrates this key text for (and made by) women. It will be interdisciplinary in its scope, not only in terms of attracting a wide audience, but how it will feature academics from various disciplines (television, gender and cultural studies, history and politics) in dialogue with archivists, media producers, television actors and a director.

‘One of 11 children, Annie Kenney works in a cotton mill and has spent most of her life in and around Oldham in Lancashire. She is invited to a suffrage meeting which is addressed by Christabel and is immediately fired with enthusiasm for the cause’.

Chair and Respondent: Prof. Christine Geraghty, University of Glasgow.

Projects of Remembering

Oral Histories and Remembering, Dr. Margaretta Jolly, University of Sussex, followed by the film, ADemocracy for Women, which includes an introduction by its director Lizzie Thynne, documentary filmmaker and University of Sussex.